Oh dog, poisoned with literature! An eternal misunderstanding separates
us. "I'm a little bull-dog," you replied just now, with that stupid
sincerity which disarms me. Let me say to you in my turn, "I am a Cat."
The name is sufficient dispensation. There is in me a hatred of pain and
ugliness, an overmastering detestation of all that offends my sight, or
my reason. When the concierge's cat dragged around his wounded paw, I
threw myself upon him, fired by a righteous anger, and until he stopped
his whining I--

TOBY-DOG, (_supplicatingly_)

Don't tell me!

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_getting angry_) Understand then, once and for
all--if the pale recital of what I did upsets you--that I wished to
abolish, to annihilate in that bleeding animal the suggestion of my own
inevitable death ...

(_They are quiet for a little while_.)

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_shuddering_)

This confinement does us no good. I would gladly go out into the soft
sunshine and do "the bayadeer's dance," as He calls it, on the dry
gravel among the leaves, which look like fried potatoes. Everything is
yellow out-of-doors. My green eyes would reflect the golden sun and the
flaming woods and so turn yellow too.... Now I'll think only of what is
joyous and yellow, the beautiful, cold Autumn, the rosy dawn that leaves
its colors in the foliage of the cherry-tree ... Come, let's prove the